Three things hit me within the last week. I received a significant editing package, which, as lovely as they are, often manages to suck a little bit of the soul out. I had a lovely conversation with an agent who had fantastic recommendations and incredible words of encouragement delivered in even measure with areas for growth. I attended a festival where some of the conversations and feedback were so surface that I sighed about the cost of parking. 

The takeaways. Writing stuff will always be a sport where something will find a way around the defence. Sometimes it trips you or scores on you. Sometimes the game might just not have been worth the drive, and sometimes you learn that you still have to keep practicing. 

It's kind of a bummer because you care, so take that as information. You care about it. That's cool. At least to me. In a world where you have so many mandatory obligations and expectations, finding something to care about that is personal and not thrust upon you is pretty remarkable. Turning that into some kind of personal growth, well, damn, now you've made personal motivation to push the Sisyphean rock. So, if nothing else good comes out of it, take the cruel satisfaction of finding something about and for you despite the often directionless and imposed nature of life. That's pretty metal.